Like Magnets
by paycheckgurl
Summary: Her life is going in circles, there's something off about the color red, and a force like magnetic poles seem to keeping her and Peter apart.


**A/N:** Story begins during Brand New Day and goes through Spider Verse. Some knowledge of the basic premise of One More Day recommended (just Google it and burn any remaining copies of that crap).

**Disclaimer:** Spider-Man is owned by Disney/Marvel. I own the right to be increasingly bored by Dan Slott's narrative and write fix-fic for it.

* * *

Mary Jane had always loved when Peter talked science to her. The way he'd slip into a lecture and his eyes would light up with passion unmatched by anything else always made her lips her curl up into a smile. There was a certain childlike glee in his love for the universe and explaining its mysteries; it was hard not to find his enthusiasm contagious.

It was during one of these little bouts of excitement that he'd told her about the Laws of Magnesium. There was lots of numbers, formulas, and plus and minus signs doodled on a napkin at the Silver Spoon, but that was the unimportant part as far as Mary Jane was concerned. The important part was about how opposite attract and like poles repel. For most of their lives it seemed Peter and MJ were ostensibly the opposites attracting- the loud party girl and the quiet nerd drawn to each other. They of course came to know they were more alike than anyone would have been able to tell on the surface-but that didn't work for the metaphor so its sale she was willingly ignoring that. But now, for some reason, they were repelling every time their poles got too close.

* * *

She knows why she left New York after the break up. It's to get away and get her career going again. It's to start over after a relationship that is destined to fail as long as Peter needs to be the hero more than he needed her.

Something in the back of her mind feels like contradicting her. _That's not true! You've done this story already and you know damn well how much that man needs you! Your career was fine where you were! You're going in circles MJ! _It's a quiet determined voice that almost sounds like her own when she was in a crisis-steely but caring with a pleasant urgent plea to it. It said a lot about her life that she was able to isolate the inflections in her crisis voice at all, really. The voice grows a bit more persistent with each day, but so does her prescient ability to ignore it.

She never lets on that something is bothering her on set or when she makes her way back to bed with Bobby Carr. She is Mary Jane Watson-and nothing is ever wrong with Mary Jane Watson. The only person able to refute that statement is on the other side of the country-probably with his gloved fist in some badly costumed crook's face.

She tells herself she didn't come back for Peter. There are no jobs where she wasn't just playing "the girl" in LA anymore. She has gotten Aunt May's wedding invitation. Bobby Carr is a slime ball and she doesn't know what on Earth had possessed her to ever think that relationship would ever end well. It has nothing to do with Peter. Magnetic pull back to New York be damned.

* * *

She'd always found the color red comforting. It was the color of her beloved hair (the best of many gorgeous features thank you, very much). It was the color of Peter's suit when he finally crawled through the bedroom window safe and sound. It was the color of many stage curtains and movie theatre seats that had always been a symbol of her calling in life. It was the symbolic color of passion and love. So it made no sense that she begins to have nightmares of red. She can remember them for a second when she wakes up-their image fleeting as her day goes on. But the unmistakable red coloring stays with her. As does the unearthly laughter of the not-remembered antagonist. It's malicious, booming laughter and fills her with a feeling of dread for a reason she can't place. Harrowing laughter and the color red.

* * *

She and Peter go through the motions again. _You've done this story too, _says the increasingly unsettled voice in back of her head. They become friends, each other confidants. They were never not, really-Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson will always be best friends no matter what happens. After the Spider Island incident she realizes how much she still loves him. His passion, his brains, his caring and his unwavering _Peter-ness_. And then Peter is replaced with Doctor Octopus at exactly the wrong time and she finds Fireman Pedro. The perfect heroic boyfriend with the added bonus of stability Peter will never have. Her acting career goes bottom up but she has her club to rebuild and the realization that Peter will never be truly hers and hers alone makes it easy for her to tell him she needs distance. She needs her own life. The little voice in back of her head is screaming in a mix of frustration and anger at the part where she said he would never truly be hers. That time it's incredibly easy to ignore the voice. Because Peter was never hers and hers alone. They hadn't even gone through with the wedding. She wonders if she really, really needs a shrink when the voice in the back of her head begins to sound like it is sobbing.

She is in bed cuddled comfortably against Pedro when the dream becomes more vivid. The red is the devil and surrounded in the burning red-orange hell fire. It may not literally be The Devil and may not be literally Hell with two ls, but the atmosphere is the same. The Devil (or a close approximate) is laughing at her. And laughing at her. And laughing at her. There's something she's supposed to remember. Something important. But she can't remember what she can't remember and the laughter makes it harder to think and the flame is getting hotter and hotter and the laughter getting more and more booming…

She wakes and tries to tell Pedro about the dream. He automatically assumes it was because of the fire at her club (it's a weird moment to think about her life choices but she wonders what ever happened to her minor off Broadway success and why the universe was so deadest against her acting dream). She knows Pedro's wrong-she's been through way worse and the dreams after the horrors she endures have never been so vivid-but she nods and accepts it because Pedro, like her relationship with him, is supposed to be simple and uncomplicated.

* * *

She catches a glimpse of Peter, web slinging with a girl in a skimpy costume made of webbing. She can all but literally feel the magnets repelling her away from him.

* * *

There are Spider-Men and Women everywhere. It's like Spider-Island all over again. _Great now even this part of your life is going in circles, _the voice chides. She sees one particular Spider-Women (or, judging by how small and nimble she looks even next to the other agile Spiders, probably more like a Spider-_Girl_) in a costume resembling the one briefly worn by Ben Riley. On closer inspection, she thinks it is the one worn by Ben Riley (or at least a very close copy). It has differently placed blue around the hips than Peter's, but the comfortably familiar red webbing design is still firmly in place.

The girl is now looking directly at her, landing softly in front of her in a flipping motion that would have been way more impressive if she hadn't seen Peter make similar movements to the point they become mundane. The girl rips off and her mask and with a smile asks, "Mom?"

She looks like MJ. And she looks like Peter. She has MJ's dimples and round face, but Peter's brown hair and slightly larger than average ears. Her hair is messy and shoulder length, but MJ can easily picture her with it cropped short if the girl so desired. The eyes aren't MJ or Peter's but they are familiar; they're Aunt May's. Mary Jane does not know the young the woman in front her, but in a sense she does.

And suddenly she sees memories that aren't her own. Or maybe they are hers because they just feel so _right_. She's pregnant and wearing one of those of those stupid pregnancy shirts with text on them and arrow pointing downwards to the belly. Peter is with her and looking at her belly so adoringly it should be illegal. "Hi May," he says in a soft voice to the entity inside of the belly. "Be good for Mommy today, okay?"

Before MJ can stop herself she is hugging the girl in front of her. Overhead a Spider-Man swings and she's sure it's the original.

Her life is going in circles, there's something off about the color red, and a force like magnetic poles seem to keeping her and Peter apart. But in that moment, hugging a girl she knows but doesn't know at all, Mary Jane thinks it's time for a change. It's time an magnetic attraction, for red to once again be comfort, and for the narrative of her live to move forward.

_Finally, _says the voice in her head.


End file.
